The 381st Bomb Group - 8th Air Force

Опубликовано: 28 Октябрь 2024
на канале: WW2TV

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The 381st Bomb Group - 8th Air Force
With Paul Bingley and Mike Peters
Part of 8th Air Force Week on WW2TV
   • 8th Air Force Week
More Strategic Bombing content on WW2TV
   • Strategic Bombing in WWII

At the heart of the Eighth Air Force was its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defenses to bomb targets vital to its war effort. They were crewed by thousands of young American airmen, most of whom were volunteers.

In the first of two shows this week about specific "Bomb Groups" – today we look at the 381st, which crossed the Atlantic in May 1943. Arriving at RAF Ridgewell on the Essex-Suffolk border, its airmen quickly found themselves thrown into the hazardous and attritional air battle raging in the skies over Europe. The 381st’s path led from its formation in the Texan desert, to its 297th and final bombing mission deep into the heart of Hitler’s Third Reich. This is the remarkable story of one group and the part it played in the strategic bombing campaign of "The Mighty Eighth."

Paul Bingley has worked in the civil aviation industry for oner thirty years. He is the current Chairman of the Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum in Essex and regularly delivers talks on the airfield’s history. Paul is acknowledged as being one of the best of the new generation of Eighth Air Force historians.

Mike Peters is a retired Army Air Corps officer with more than thirty years of military service. He is now a full-time military historian and Chairman of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides. Mike has published books on the Glider Pilot Regiment in WWII and the Operational History of the Army Air Corps.

Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and the Allied Air Offensive Over Europe by Paul Bingley and Mike Peters
UK https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5843/978161...
USA https://bookshop.org/a/21029/97816120...

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